A Love Poem from Iraq
By Jack Dawkins
written somewhere south of Baghdad, September 2007.
last we spoke on the phone
you asked before the signal died
why I haven’t written you a poem
and I have thought and sought and sifted
the reason from the remains
coursed the grains of sand and
roaring gravel
to roam in unraveling battle through Babel
to build it in a day
to word this in a way that wont hurt:
this desert
has dried up all my ink
before my heart could spill like wax upon the page
and all my passion
all my rage
all my love
all my hate
evaporate
beneath a sun
that rules the burnt horizon
on a chariot of reeling winds
peeling our skin
laughing our wins
to laugh our loses as no sum
for everything it levels in the end
how could I write home
what would I write when
the very stars have crossed
and conspired to separate
as sand and sea stand between
when the meanest of men piece together the policies that rule me
while sectarian strife is making civil hands to be unclean
where cell phone signals are weak
with fair Verizon where we lay our scene
so when we speak our waves don’t meet
but crash in static and defeat
our time zones eight hours out of sync
so calling me each evening
wakes my whole platoon every 4:00AM
the more I am here the less I adhere to the plan we set to steer us safely
through the waters of this arid desolation
this nation
this cradle of still born civilization
this rocking me listlessly to sleep
listing to love less lest I give the mess I live
to you, I wouldn’t dream
yet I am weary in not writing you a poem
too many reasons under the sun
so I rise
and steal the silence
from the night
to find my words
walking barefoot through a wilderness dipped in drowsed sleep
where dust and palm fronds sigh with ease
beneath a pale and half-moon light
that lays to earth so soft a yarn
it paints a parchment white
there I kneel
weapon to side
branch in hand
to write your poem
into the sand
parting dust to mark the words
to trace the thought grain by grain
waiting for the winds to blow the words
with sand into my eyes
til I cry the tears that wash those words
from land into the sea
where they arrive on distant shores
to find you
the words are these:
My dear,
when you stand there on the beach
facing east
your eyes toward dawn
know I am here
(eight hours ahead)
to brave each sunrise alone before you
hoping someday one may
hold just long enough
for me to ride into the sky
to rise and fall with it west
landing me on the pillow
where you rest your head
that I may catch you in time
to kiss your half-closed eyes
in the early morning moments
just before you rise
when all dreams and waking
all our wanting and waiting
all combine
and intertwine
to find you and me
together
at last
again.